Transport Manager Survives Public Inquiry with Good Repute Undamaged

The Transport Manager in this case, represented at Public Inquiry by barrister Harry Bowyer, applied to be put on the licence of a coach company. The Director was called abroad on family matters and correspondence and the two communicated by text during his absence. Within 6 weeks of his appointment the DVSA visited the premises and prohibited one of the vehicles and produces an unsatisfactory report on the undertaking. The Traffic Commissioner heard evidence that in his short tenure the Transport Manager had significantly improved the operator’s systems and that the prohibited vehicle was meant to have been VORed whilst waiting for the faults identified by the vehicle examiner to be fixed but this had not been done through oversight. The Traffic Commissioner agreed that the Transport Manager had not been in post long enough to turn the business around and that his repute should be untarnished. The Transport Manager was given a “minor warning” about the importance of making sure that unserviceable vehicles were properly VORed in the future.